There are so many situations that businesses find beyond their control, and in the grand scheme of things these uncontrollable elements can unfortunately have a great impact on their bottom line. In the custom electronics market one of those uncontrollable situations is the painful process of working with the local cable television providers.
Taking control of this stressful situation is Shane Blanton, owner of Opelika, Alabama-based Satellite & Electronics Innovations. Blanton’s approach to this problem puts him and his company in a small, but proactive group of dealers that offer satellite systems. According to CE Pro’s most recent Annual Readership Study, only 28 percent of CE pros offer satellite TV service. By offering Dish Network to his clients, Blanton is able to provide his clientele with a streamlined, service-oriented customer experience that is a gaping hole for other dealers.
“I wanted to offer more services to my customers. Anything I can offer to customers to be a one-stop shop is what I try to do,” explains Blanton. “This goes back to being a one-stop shop. Instead of a customer calling a cable company and us following up or having a cable technician mangling a system setup. Being a Dish Network dealer means this is not a problem for me. We integrate these systems into our whole-house Control4 systems, and into our home theaters. Through this Dish Network program, we ultimately save our customers from spending additional money because we don’t have to go back to the jobsite for a service call after the cable tech has come in and mangled the system. It’s better for our customers if we are a one-stop shop in my opinion.”
Recalling his start in the electronics industry, Blanton says he initially entered the low-voltage market and offered both DirecTV and Dish Network products, but over time he found that he preferred the combination of Dish’s hardware and service packages and eventually dropped the DirecTV line of products. Since then he has gone on to add products and services such as lighting, home automation and networking to his company’s portfolio of services, and found Control4’s products to also complement his “one-stop shop” customer approach.
“Dish has done some amazing products with the Hopper and the Joey systems, and bar none, Dish has the best DVR system on the planet. No one can touch the ease of use in Dish’s new interface. The best television experience we can give a customer is through a Dish Network system,” he emphasizes. “Control4 is the best automation system, and Dish’s integration through Control4 is flawless. There are Control4 drivers with Dish … we don’t have to write our own drivers.”
Staying true to his philosophical approach through the ebbs-and-flows of the economy and technology trends, Blanton stresses that regardless of the circumstance or customer, his goal remains the same.
“We are big on being a one-stop shop. Customers don’t get a great experience or the best bang for the buck when they have to call three or four companies for Internet, TV, and system integration,” he adds. “I don’t’ think that is the best, more efficient way of doing things. We do their networking, TV, automation, lighting. They have one number to call and we can provide the best customer experience. That is what we strive for in every home we go into.”
